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Grants:APG/Funds Dissemination Committee/Additional Information and Analysis/Interviews/Kat Walsh

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What should the overall vision for the FDC be?

  • Ideally the committee would be something people would look to as a legitimate

representation of the movement

  • An impartial source of decisions about where the funding should go

What should membership look like, and how should members be selected?

  • Composition
    • 12-15 members, should not be a very small committee so it is not too dependent on availability and preferences of a few key members, but not so large that it’s unwieldy and cannot make decisions
    • Broad representation: foundation, chapters, non-chapter movement (should be active members), sister projects
      • Non-English speakers
    • Non-leaders in movement bodies (e.g., shouldn’t just be presidents of chapters, etc, want more and different leaders who are not overcommitted)
    • Should definitely be staff representation there, shouldn’t be more conflict of interest there than in

chapter leadership

  • Selection:
    • Open calls will raise the same people as always, but not always the best people for the job;
    • Shouldn’t just accept the same people who are always quick to volunteer
    • Maybe getting recommendations from people, vs only taking volunteers
    • Would elections work? Probably not ideal for this, people will run on “platforms” and that could be moving away from strategic priorities
    • The Advisory Group might be the right body to ultimately select members, at least in the short term, long term when is more stable may be different
  • Requirements – these volunteers should be more detail-oriented, thoughtful evaluators

What should the FDC have authority over? (e.g., ultimate decision-making authority, size of disbursement)

  • Most “large” chunks, >$50K (or even $25 – $30K), as well as most chapter operating budgets even if below that
  • Requests below that should usually be separate, done through a more lightweight process
    • “I like the concept of the GAC” and people appreciate the transparency of it – if it can be continued that would be great
    • There should be a relationship between the GAC and the FDC (e.g., the GAC provides a monthly report to the FDC)
  • But the FDC can’t be the ultimate authority – the Board has to be the ultimate D (or A) due to fiduciary responsibilities; expect to approve most FDC recommendations ultimately, but might not be true at the very start as the group is still developing its processes.
  • The FDC should be obligated to carry out the strategic goals of the WMF

What should the Advisory Group’s role be?

  • They should be doing more of the strategic thinking (vs more tactical evaluation, which is the role of the FDC)

Where might there be points of contention with the FDC or funds dissemination process?

  • Appeals / grant application rejection. There may be questions around what to do with appeals? What criteria will be used to address appeals? How do we evaluate if annual funds or experimental project funds are a “good investment” or not?
  • People will be concerned about 1) capacity of the group, 2) legitimacy of the body (not aligned too strongly to one particular body or another

How do we best engage the Wiki community?

  • The best way is to do most of the work in public (such as on Meta) and invite input
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